A sermon on Mark 1:1-11, preached by Dwight A. Moody on Sunday, July 8, 2018, for First Baptist Church, St. Simons Island, Georgia
We celebrate the beginnings of things: the beginning of a game, by the toss of the coin; the birth of the nation by signing of the Declaration of Independence; and of a marriage by the exchange of vows. These beginnings are important and our memory of them even more so. So it was with Jesus: leaving Galilee, walking to the Jordan Valley, and submitting to the baptism of John. In this way he began his mission from God: to announce the coming kingdom of God, to seek and save the lost, and to offer himself for the salvation of the world. All of his work had a beginning, that day when he came to John and said, “I’m ready. Let’s do it. Baptize me.” John responded with some version of this, “It’s about time!”
Reading this beginning gives US inspiration to begin something: to finish the preparation and launch the project; to complete the introduction and begin the journey; to wrap up all that goes before and say to ourselves and to everyone, “it’s about time.” What are you waiting to begin? To start something or to quit something? To confess something or to deny something? To write something or to erase something? For somebody here today, it’s about time. The spirit of God is speaking to you this morning: “It’s about time to do what I am calling you to do.”
It is about 15 miles from Nazareth, a small town in Galilee, to where the Jordan River flows out of the Sea of Galilee. The river meanders some 40 miles straight south into the Dead Sea. Somewhere along that course, John was baptizing people. He was announcing the coming of Messiah; he was calling people to repent and live for God; he was preaching a message summed up in these words: “It’s about time…for something new, for something different, for something powerful and transformative and eternal.” Jesus heard this message and felt this call. He waded into the water with John. It was a powerful experience, and he remembered it the rest of his life. Jesus felt something; he saw something; he heard something.
I remember my baptism, and many of you here remember your baptism. It is one of the blessings of what we call “believers baptism.” You are baptized as a believer not as the child of a believer. You are baptized after you hear and understand and confess Christ as Lord and Savior. You are baptized when and only when you say to God, “It’s about time for me to follow Christ. It’s about time for me to trust God. It’s about time for me to live in the fullness of the spirit of God.” I remember my baptism. I was ten years old. My pastor in Kentucky took me and my brother together into the baptistry. The water was up to my chest. I felt it. It was cold. I looked out into the sanctuary, I saw all the people. Then I heard something. First, the pastor said to me, “Don’t look at the people; you will get scared.” Then he said, “I baptized you my brother Dwight Moody, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Then he dipped me all the way under, and I felt the water running off my face. It is a holy memory.
Jesus also felt the water, cold and wet and running around him and over him. Jesus also saw something, a vision of heaven, open, with something like a dove, coming down and resting on his shoulder. The gospel writer John (the brother of James) says that John (the prophet and baptizer) also saw this vision. Then Jesus heard a voice. Did anybody else hear it? We don’t know, but Jesus heard it, and that is what is important. God can speak to you even when no one else hears it. Jesus heard this voice from God, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” This affirmation by God his heavenly Father and this baptism by John his cousin were the two things that Jesus needed to begin what God had called him to do. Your baptism is also the beginning of what God is calling you to do.
Yes, there are preparations. The gospels tell us a few of the things that prepared Jesus for this day of beginning. He was in the temple, even as a youth, learning and seeking and asking questions and giving his opinion. “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man,” the old translation says. Jesus and John were cousins, first cousins, you recall. Jesus knew John and his mission and his message. That day at the Jordan River when John baptized Jesus—was that the first time Jesus heard John preach his message of repentance, salvation, and the messianic kingdom? I doubt it. Perhaps for years, at least days, the preaching of John helped God instruct and inspire Jesus. The preaching of John clarified in Jesus’ mind his own mission. The preaching of John prodded Jesus to ask himself and ask God, “Is it time?”
Every beginning has a time of preparation. Think about the nation. For a century and a half immigrants and refugees flocked to the shores of the new world. They were building, planting, and creating. They were reading and writing and preaching. They were seeking freedom and prosperity and opportunity. England imposed a tax on tea, then sent soldiers to enforce it. These soldiers were allowed to come to your house and demand lodging. These things agitated the people of the new world. They met to express their grievances and organize their opposition. They commissioned a young man, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, to write a declaration of their independence. Finally, representatives of the people gathered in Philadelphia, in what we know call Independence Hall, and signed this document. They said to one another, “It’s about time!” Years of preparation preceded the action of independence.
Things are happening in your life right now that are preparing you to begin something. You are meeting people, reading books, asking questions; you are saving money, learning skills, discovering yourself; you are surviving trauma, enduring pain, overcoming resistance; you are waiting, praying, trusting, dreaming, preparing. For some of you, it’s about time. You want to start a business? Do you dream of building your house? You want to change jobs or change careers? You want to get married? Or file for divorce? You want to write a book, or launch an organization, or go on a journey? You want to trust God, and follow Jesus, and fulfill your mission in this world. You want to be saved? You want to be baptized? It’s about time!
Last week Sam and went out to Christ Church and wandered in the graveyard. I was looking for the grave stone of Eugenia Price. Somebody here today knew her. Eugenia was born in Charleston West Virginia in 1916. At the age of ten she decided she wanted to be a writer. By the time she graduated from high school, she declared she was atheist. Following college, she worked for NBC and launched her own production company. But in 1949 she became a Christian and started writing for the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. Five years later she published a book about her conversion. It is entitled, “The Burden is Light: The Autobiography of a Transformed Pagan who took God at His Word.” It is a narrative of all that happened to prepare her for faith in Christ, to prepare her for baptism, to prepare her for fifty years of inspiration and influence. It is the story of talent and independence, of addictions and adversity, of loneliness and sadness. All that prepared Ms. Price for her encounter with a childhood friend, for her exposure to Christ Church in New York City, for the sudden awakening of her spirit to the joy of life. She was radically and thoroughly converted in 1949 and began her journey with Jesus as Lord. She described her new life this way: “I lived under the sign of an explanation point.”
They called her Jenie, and she moved to this island in 1965. She wrote many books of southern historical fiction, including a trilogy about St. Simons. But it was her second book that touched my life. I read it before I turned 20, and it has resonated in my soul for almost 40 years. I commend her books. I commend this book. In 1982, she republished the book and added a Afterward. That was about the time my wife and I started coming to the island ourselves. Her brother was a federal officer, trained at FLETC; he bought a condo in Sea Palms and we used it from time to time. I wish I had known she was here. I would have found her house and knocked on her door. In her 1982 chapter she writes: “On the island where I live, I’ve learned an invaluable lesson which I could never have learned had I continued the hectic travel schedule of the first few years [in Chicago]. I’ve learned how to live in community. I’m not only involved day in and day out with the sorrows and joys of the island’s people, I’m also involved in preserving its history and its natural resources and beauty.”
I recommend this book, and my wife recommends all of her books. (Somebody should buy all of them for the church library!) More than that, I commend her decision to follow Jesus. For her, it was about time! God prepared Eugenia Price for her conversion, for her ministry, for her influence. God prepared Jesus for his baptism, for the inauguration of his mission, for the launching of his ministry. God is preparing you for something important, something significant, something that will change your life, something that will touch the lives of those around you. Like Jesus and like Jenie Price, your mind must be ready; your soul must be ready; your spirit must be ready.
For somebody here today, it’s about time. It’s about time to lead or to launch. It’s about time to give or forgive. It’s about time to speak or to shut up! Yes, God can tell you to pipe down! James the brother of Jesus wrote near the beginning of his letter in the New Testament, “Let everyone be quick to listen and slow to speak.” And the writer in the Old Testament asserts, “There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak.”
Sam read our text today, about Jesus and his journey from Nazareth, down to the Jordan Valley, and into the waters of baptism. But that was just the beginning of the journey for Jesus. He returned to Galilee, took up residence at Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, and traveled throughout the land: teaching, preaching, healing, rebuking, telling stories and debating scripture. His journey led him once again down the Jordan valley, through Jericho, where he looked up and saw that wee little man named Zacchaeus. “Come down, Zacchaeus. It’s about time I went to your house. And it’s about time you started something new in your life: something true and godly and righteous.” Zacchaeus was ready. “Today, I will start new with you. I will give half of my possessions to the poor. I will make restitution to all I have cheated and return fourfold what I have taken.” Jesus said in response, “Today, salvation has come to this house.”
Jesus left Jericho and went up the road to Jerusalem: to the temple where he was in conflict with the religious establishment; to the upper room where he celebrated the festival of the Passover; to Gethsemane where he prayed for strength and where Judas betrayed him; to jail where he was falsely accused and sentenced to die; to the hill outside of the city where he died for you and me. The journey started with “It’s about time” and the journey ended with “It is finished.”
You don’t know where your journey will end. You do not know where it will take you. Some of you think you know, but you don’t. We think we see the road from here to the end, but we do not know. Only God knows. But you can trust God. You can pray this prayer: “Keep me in the center of you will, O God. Take me where you want me to go. Give me strength and wisdom for the journey.” The prayer we all need for the journey is attributed to St. Patrick: “Christ before me, Christ behind me. Christ above me, Christ below me. Christ on my right, Christ on my left. Christ with me when I sleep, Christ with me when I awake.”
It’s about time to pray that prayer. It’s about time to take that step. It’s about time to trust God. It’s about time to be baptized. It’s about time to begin.
